He was literally in a class by himself. He was […] one of a kind. And — Charles Krauthammer

"The greatest threat to a robust, autonomous civil society is the ever-growing Leviathan state and those like Obama who see it as the ultimate expression of the collective. Obama compounds the fallacy by declaring the state to be the font of entrepreneurial success. How so? It created the infrastructure — roads, bridges, schools, Internet — off which we all thrive. Absurd. We dont credit the Swiss postal service with the Special Theory of Relativity because it transmitted Einstein’s manuscript to the Annalen der Physik."

"If Obama has his way, the change that is coming is a new America: "fair," leveled and social democratic. Obama didnt get elected to warranty your muffler. Hes here to warranty your life."

"Obama offered Muslims a careful admonition about womens rights, noting how denying women education impoverishes a country — balanced, of course, with this: "Issues of womens equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam." Example? "The struggle for womens equality continues in many aspects of American life." Well, yes. On the one hand, there certainly is some American university where the womens softball team has received insufficient Title IX funds — while, on the other hand, Saudi women showing ankle are beaten in the street, Afghan school girls have acid thrown in their faces, and Iranian women are publicly stoned to death for adultery. (Gays as well — but then again we have Prop 8.) We all have our shortcomings, our national foibles. Whos to judge?"

"The question of whether America is in decline cannot be answered yes or no. There is no yes or no. Both answers are wrong, because the assumption that somehow there exists some predetermined inevitable trajectory, the result of uncontrollable forces, is wrong. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing is written. For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice. Two decades into the unipolar world that came about with the fall of the Soviet Union, America is in the position of deciding whether to abdicate or retain its dominance. Decline — or continued ascendancy — is in our hands."

"In the course of his presidency, Obama has gone from an almost magical charismatic figure to an ordinary politician. Ordinary. Average. His approval ratings are roughly equal to what the last five presidents were at the same time in their first term. […] He will not be the great transformer he imagines himself to be. A president like others -- with successes and failures."

"Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country — and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians."